IMAGES IN USE 425image was as rigidly carried out in Israel as in Islam—^thesecond monotheistic revival of the Semites. The holy ofhoUes in Solomon's Temple contained, however, two enormouscherubim, about 17 feet high, side by side, right across the backof the shrine. . . . Not only were these figures in the hoUestplace, but in the court stood the brazen sea on twelve oxen,and figures of Uons, oxen, and cherubim covered the tanks.In earUer times Micah had a graven image, and a moltenimage of silver, weighing about six pounds, in his privatechapel of Yahweh, served by a Levite, and they, vrith the ephodand teraphim. were adopted for tribal worship by part of thetribe of Dan imtil the captivity." The author adds " there was neither officiaUy nor privatelyany objection to the use of images." He also shows that even" in the hoUest of aU things, the Ark of Yahweh. there werecherubs, one on each side of the mercy seat, vrith their vringscovering the mercy seat," in which design and other reUgiousmatters he discerns clear instances of Egs^ptian influence. However this may be, it is plain from Ezekiel (viii. lo-ii)that the IsraeUtes worshipped graven representations of " everyform of creeping things and abominable beasts, and aU the idolsof the House of Israel, pourtrayed up on the waU round about.And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of Israel. . . vrith every man his censer in his hand: and the odourof the cloud of incense went up." Some scholars go indeed asfar as the assertion that until the prophetic reformation in theseventh and sixth centuries B.C., the popular reUgion of Israelwas about on a level vrith unreformed Hinduism. We stand on surer ground in the statement that AsHtoreth.a goddess of the Zidonians and Canaanites. was worshippedby Israel, for in i Kings xi. 5 and 33, we read " Solomonwent after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians,"and, " because they have forsaken me and have worshippedAshtoreth." ^ From this acknowledged worship of Ashtoreth, * Of the fate of this and other temples erected by Solomon we read in2 Kings xxiu. 13, " and the high places which Solomon had builded for Ash¬toreth. the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the abominationof Moab, and for MUcom, the abomination of the chilifren of Ammon, did theking defile," i.e. King Josiah some three centuries and a half after.